The best coverage came from the local folks.  (Note: This link will only be good today.)

Not news: Trump lied about the size of his crowd.  Trump lied about about crime in El Paso. The crowd shouted “Lock her up” more than once although no women in the Trump administration have gone to jail. Yet.

Rawstory caught the decline in Trump’s ability to describe his protestors.

“Where do these people come from? Where do they come from? They go back home to mommy. They get punished when they get home,” Trump said, using an odd phrase.

Since farmers and ranchers have become increasingly adamant that Trump’s wall cannot interrupt their use the river or take any of their land, Trump announced that he was going to build the wall “on the river.” I guess right down the middle or something. That’ll be an engineering wonder! I give it a week before it ends up in the Gulf of Mexico.

I’ll meet you at Boca Chica beach to watch Trump’s Wall end up in an apocalyptic pile.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

Even though Texas has about the same property tax rate as other states, our Lt. Governor Dan Patrick starts almost every speech yelling that our property taxes are too damn high.  Except he doesn’t say damn. He loves Jesus and according to Dan Patrick, Jesus is highly opposed to damn.

Dan Patrick

Now it’s odd how if you listen to Republicans you will discover loads of hypocrisy.  Honey, if hypocrisy was dirt, Trump could use Texas Republican officeholders to poop a wall on the border about 30 feet high.

The Houston Chronicle and the Fort Worth Star Telegram discovered something odd about Dan’s property taxes.  While almost everybody in his neighborhood and the whole state of Texas had their property evaluations go up, Dan’s went down.  That means he paid less taxes.

Since they purchased it in April 2017, the 4,300 square-foot house Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and his wife own on Lake Conroe in Montgomery County has dropped in market value from nearly $968,000 to $921,000 in 2018. The result is that the tax bill on the Benthaven Isle home has decreased from $19,429 to $16,736 — a 14-percent drop.

From 2017 to 2018, market values went up for 88 percent of homeowners in the county.

His taxes are too damn low.

Maybe my taxes are higher so that Dan’s taxes can be lower.

It looks fishy to me.

After acting Secretary of State David Whitley’s disastrous publishing of THE LIST, there are two questions that must be asked:

1. Is David Whitley a lying, radical partisan doing Greg Abbott’s bidding to suppress minority voters?
2. Or is he just simply incompetent?

The answer to both of these questions is the same – Whitley must go.  He should not be confirmed as the Secretary of State of Texas since one of that role’s prime jobs is to ensure full and fair elections.  His first major act utterly failed to do that.  Whitley is an Abbott acolyte who’s only actual government experience is deputy chief of staff and appointments maker.  He rocketed into the Secretary of State role in December when Abbott put him in the job.

Let’s not beat around the bush – Whitley published this list with great fanfare for one reason and one reason only – to create the false impression that undocumented people are voting in Texas.  That, of course, is a blatant lie.  The only evidence you need of that conclusion is the coordinated media responses to the shocking announcement by Ken Paxton and even His Orangeness himself.  The announcements didn’t say that the Secretary of State was asking counties to “study” the list, they declared that 95,000 non-citizens were registered to vote and that 58,000 did indeed vote in the 2018 election.  They did that to de-legitimize Beto O’Rourke’s very strong showing against Worst Senator in the History of Texas, Ted Cruz and to set the table for this election cycle of legislating more voter suppression to stem the tide of changing demographics in Texas. And it was a gigantic lie, as is becoming more and more obvious.

David Whitley needs to be shown the door with the toe of the Senate’s boot.  Even Republicans, the beneficiaries of the lies and voter suppression efforts in Texas, need to recognize that at some point cheating and lying won’t work effectively enough for them to maintain power and that they should rethink their radical partisan agenda.

Whitley must be rejected.

I want y’all to meet David Currie, who is the chairman of the Tom Green County Democratic Party and has recently been elected to represent The Rural Caucus at the Texas Democratic Party.

David lives among heathens, miscreants, and rascals.  Tom Green County voted 75% for Ted Cruz.  If you’re wondering, Tom Greene County is a lot like Abilene but without the panache.

David is a retired Baptist minister but, as Momma used to say – not “that” kind of Baptist.  David may have retired, but he took his pulpit with him.

He preaches to rural Texas.  I think you’ll enjoy this.

And then the Republicans try to cook him and eat him.

I love a good sermon.

Oh, this is gonna be fun, y’all.

Trump is coming to El Paso to give a campaign speech.  Beto O’Rourke said, “By golly, that’s the same time I’m leading a parade through downtown and then wind up at a rally of our own.  What a coincidence!”

And then, just for fun, a Go Fund Me page raised more than enough money to rent the Trump baby and bring it to El Paso to embarrass Trump.  They are going to put it at the border patrol station where Trump will be visiting.

Trump, O’Rourke, and Giant Balloon. That officially makes it a three ring circus.

If anybody hears about any live coverage, please let us know.

Thanks to Lisbeth for the heads up.

Okay, this is the definition of dumber than bean dip.

AMI (the National Enquirer) up and decides to extort the richest man in the world, if not the universe.  When was the exact point in time that they decided that would work? One of the very cool benefits about having $137 billion dollars is that you become unembarrassable. You can write stuff all over public bathroom walls about somebody with $137 billion and it won’t change one single thing about their lives.

And let’s face it – The National Enquirer is the bathroom wall of journalism.

I would not mess with this man. He is very powerful. Hell, this man, with a whim all on his own, can make sure that you never enjoy free shipping for rest of your life.  Are you nuts?